Activity Lead, Early Childhood Care & Education (ECCE), CATALYZE

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

This Opportunity:

CATALYZE, the USAID $250 million 8-year program, is seeking an Activity Lead for its Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) activity. This person will be responsible for designing, implementing, and continuously overseeing interventions of the ECCE family of investments, which currently pilots multiple models across Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

The CATALYZE Early Childhood Care & Education (ECCE) activity aims to enhance access to low-cost and high-quality ECCE which unlocks inclusive development, improving child outcomes, promoting women's economic empowerment, enhancing family welfare, and driving overall economic growth. ECCE seeks to fill the gap in education that nearly 593 million children below primary school age currently experience; specifically, they lack access to appropriate childcare in emerging economies, constraining human capital growth. Meanwhile, women, who assume an estimated 75% of childcare responsibilities worldwide are often unable to pursue economic opportunities given care responsibilities. As a result, 606 million women worldwide are excluded from the global labour force, with consequent impacts on productivity and economic growth.

CATALYZE is designed to mobilize $2 billion in private capital, especially to underfinanced social sectors (such as education) and higher risk countries (especially low-income and post-conflict countries) around the globe, complemented by a cross-cutting inclusion of gender-lens investing. CATALYZE will serve as a "platform of platforms" that will provide services to many missions and bureaus that "buy in" to tap the CATALYZE investment and pay-for-results project management expertise. Our aim is for investors to explore and find commercially-viable opportunities and approaches to creating jobs, developing sustainable social services, tightening, and rationalizing supply chains, and advancing inclusive growth - ultimately, reducing the need for development institutions to provide donor funding.

Location and Compensation:

The position is based in Palladium's Washington D.C. office. Highly-qualified remote candidates may be considered.

For our prospective employees in the United States, please note that the full-time equivalent annual base salary for this position is expected to range from $100,000 to $150,000 and successful candidates may also be eligible for additional, variable incentive compensation dependent on the role.

Please be advised that a final salary offer will be based on various factors, including but not limited to your qualifications, education, experience, skills, seniority, performance, and Palladium's business or organizational needs.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the compensation for this position, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We value your interest in our company and appreciate the opportunity to discuss this opportunity with you.

You and Your Career:

If you are passionate about early childhood development, women's economic empowerment, creating and leading innovative and high-value public-private partnerships, and blended finance, and if you have expertise in international education, learning, and early childhood development, the care economy, project management, and/or social impact, then we are interested in hearing from you.

We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career!

Reporting Lines:

• This position will report to the Chief of Party of CATALYZE or her designee.
  
• The Activity Lead, ECCE will supervise multiple managers on the ECCE team, including some who work full-time and others who work part-time on the team.
  

Primary Roles and Responsibilities:

• Manage and oversee ECCE programs in USAID priority countries that increase women's economic empowerment and private sector investment in ECCE, and that strengthen education, learning, and early childhood development outcomes.
• Lead and take responsibility for all activity work planning and budgeting, project management and implementation, achievement of results and performance-based fee, and monitoring evaluation and learning across the ECCE activity
  
• Lead and manage the CATALYZE ECCE relationship with USAID
  
• Oversee and manage subcontractors, grant recipients and consultants to ensure that their performance meets or exceeds technical requirements
  
• Design and develop new buy-ins for ECCE as they emerge. This includes developing the performance work statements, work plans, monitoring and evaluation plans, and other foundational documents
  
• Provide technical assistance and guidance to the ECCE team and its partners throughout the co-creation and implementation processes
  
• Manage and oversee a team of technical and program specialists in the ECCE sector and in countries where Palladium is implementing the ECCE work. These specialists may be Palladium employees, consultants, or grantees
  
• Contribute to research, analysis, and publication of technical studies, case studies, policy, and program briefs to demonstrate thought leadership
  
• Utilize an adaptive management approach to advice project senior management to quickly adopt and scale cost-effective strategies and activities
  
• Ensure agile program implementation in line with MEL findings through leadership of a collaborate, learn, and adapt (CLA) approach
  
• Other duties as required
  

Essential Criteria:

• Demonstrated experience and expertise in one or more of the following areas: childcare, care economy, early childhood education, innovative financing, women's economic empowerment, and/or blended finance
  
• In-depth knowledge of the existing ECCE body of research and best technical practices.
  
• Established relationships with key donors and stakeholders in the ECCE space
  
• Demonstrated experience convening diverse stakeholders and driving innovative partnerships
  
• Experience managing donor-funded projects
  
• Strong experience in monitoring, evaluation, and learning
  
• Evidence of strong communication skills, both interpersonal and written, to fulfil the diverse technical and managerial requirements of the project
  
• Knowledge of USAID programming in the education sector and key policies including the private sector engagement policy, education policy and USAID terminology, processes, and tools
  
• Ability to communicate effectively and professionally in English
  
• Willingness and ability to travel and work in developing countries (and elsewhere) a minimum of 6-13 weeks per year, when travel and health conditions allow
  

Desirable Criteria:

• Proficiency in Spanish
  
• Master's degree or higher in education, business administration, finance, or another relevant field
  
• At least eight years of relevant work experience, ideally in education, finance, and development
  

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as "the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm". We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.